In recent years, the speed of signals has become more and more high and electrical connectors also have been required to provide structures suited to the transmission of higher speed signals.
In performing high-speed signal transmission, grounding plays an important role and what grounding parts should be disposed in what places is important. The reliability of connection is also important, for example, when grounding parts are connected to a substrate.
FIG. 8 is a sectional view of an electrical connector assembly disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-135826.
An electrical connector assembly 80 shown in this FIG. 8 is constituted by a first electrical connector 81 and a second electrical connector 82 that are engaged with each other. The first electrical connector 81 has signal contacts 811 disposed in two rows, a grounding member 812 disposed between the rows of the signal contacts 811, and a housing 813 that holds the signal contacts 811 and the grounding member 812. The signal contacts 811 and the grounding member 812 have what is called dip type leg sections 811a, 812a that pierce through a substrate (not shown).
Similarly, the second electrical connector 82 also has signal contacts 821 disposed in two rows, a grounding member 822 disposed between the rows of the signal contacts 821, and a housing 823 that holds the signal contacts 821 and the grounding member 822. The signal contacts 821 and the grounding member 822 have what is called dip type leg sections 821a, 822a that pierce through a substrate (not shown).
FIG. 9 is an appearance perspective view of an electrical connector assembly disclosed in the National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2000-516028, and FIG. 10 is a drawing that shows the arrangement of contacts that constitute the electrical connector the appearance of which is shown in FIG. 9.
This electrical connector 90 has four rows of contacts 91, 92, and a housing 93 that holds these four rows of contacts 91, 92. In this housing 93, between the inner two rows of contacts 92 among these four rows of contacts 91, 92 there is formed an opening 931 to which leg sections 92a of these inner two rows of contacts 92 are exposed.
In the case of the electrical connector assembly 80 of FIG. 8 disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-135826, the grounding members 812, 822 are disposed between the rows of signal contacts 811, 821 of the electrical connectors 81, 82, and therefore, in this respect, crosstalks of the signal contacts 811, 821 are reduced, providing a structure suitable for high-speed signal transmission. However, in the case of the electrical connector assembly 80 shown in this FIG. 8, both the signal contacts 821 and the grounding member 822 have the dip type leg sections 821a, 822a that pierce through the substrate and, therefore, this poses the problems that (1) the solder connection cannot be visually checked from the top surface side of the substrate and (2) because the leg sections 822a of the grounding member 822 are spaced from each other, it is difficult to minimize the length of a grounding path.
On the other hand, in the case of the electrical connector disclosed in the National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2000-516028 shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, the contacts 92 of the inner two rows are not grounding contacts and hence are not suitable for high-speed signal transmission. Furthermore, each of the contacts 92 is independent, posing the problem that the number of component parts becomes very large.